Earlier on Friday, the Uttar Pradesh government withdrew the money laundering cases against Amar Singh that strongly indicated that the estranged former Samajwadi Party heavyweight is preparing for a homecoming.

Sources said Mulayam had been under pressure from common friends of Yadav and Singh to re-induct Singh, but party leaders - including Azam Khan and Yadav's brother Ram Gopal and son CM Akhilesh Singh Yadav - are wary about Singh.

Singh was expelled in February 2010 for "anti-party activities". But the cases against him were lodged in October 2009 during Mayawati's regime.

Since the FIR was against three persons - Singh, his wife Pankaja and Bollywood icon Amitabh Bachchan - sources in UP politics say that Singh has most probably been let off the hook so that Bachchan can be exonerated from the charge. And it is not at all linked to Singh's comeback.

Singh, who later floated his own party, Lok Manch, and vigorously campaigned against the SP during the assembly election early this year - without, of course, shooting at Yadav -- has lately been making conciliatory statements.

When asked recently if he was missing Singh, his one-time mentor, Yadav, replied with a firm "no". The common friends, however, have been insisting the SP patriarch - at the threshold of emerging as the PM candidate in the 2014 elections - will gain from Singh's phenomenal networking skills.